Bill Tieleman is one of BC's best known communicators, political commentators and strategists.
Bill writes a politics column Tuesdays in 24 Hours newspaper and The Tyee online magazine.
Bill has been Communications Director in the B.C. Premier's Office and at the BC Federation of Labour.
Bill owns West Star Communications, a consulting firm providing strategy and communication services for labour, business, non-profits and government.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Locked out for a Year, Courageous Richmond IKEA Workers Won't Back Down Against Billionaire

IKEA's
hardball tactics in BC may reflect a creeping Americanization of
labor-management relations in Canada."

-
Professor John Logan, San Francisco State University

When
the company owned by the world's fifth richest man challenges 350 unionized
workers in Richmond, B.C. and demands they take concessions, you know it's a
David versus Goliath fight.

But
IKEA workers now locked out for a year won't give in to billionaire owner
Ingvar Kamprad.

The
lockout illustrates the difficult challenges faced by organized labour in B.C.
when a small group of local workers is pitted against a big, multinational
corporation.

It's
not just IKEA workers in Richmond who are having trouble with their employer --
IKEA has been accused of labour rights violations
by workers in the United States, Turkey, Russia, France, Italy Ireland and
other countries.

The
company has been mired in several international controversies, including the
2012 admission that for up to 30 years political prisoners in forced labour
factories in East Germany were manufacturing products IKEA sold in Europe.

"We
deeply regret that this could happen. The use of political prisoners has never
been acceptable to the Ikea Group," Jeanette Skjelmose, the company's
sustainability manager said
at the time.

But the
"flat pack" furniture giant lumbers on, and the year-long dispute
that has left about 300 Teamsters members on the picket line and about 35
workers crossing it to work at the still partially-open store continues.

For its
part, IKEA is standing pat, saying that the stumbling block to get a new
contract is what happens to the 35 workers.

"We
are committed to going back to the bargaining table with or without a mediator
in an effort to reach a fair resolution -- but the union needs to demonstrate a
willingness to bargain on all open items," IKEA Canada's Madeleine
Löwenborg-Frick wrote via email on Sunday. "It is the Teamsters' refusal
to bargain on the expelled employees that is prolonging the strike."

Anita
Dawson, Teamsters' Local 213 business agent, disagrees.

"We're
not asking for those workers to be fired and never have. They could be
transferred to another store or moved into management," Dawson said on
Monday. "The company is trying to make that the issue, but it is within
their own power to resolve it."

A
serious disadvantage

Talk
about a Goliath: IKEA owner Kamprad was estimated by Bloomberg to be worth
a staggering US$41.8 billion in 2012, putting him just behind Microsoft mogul
Bill Gates.

Kamprad
even left Sweden in the 1970s to live in Switzerland, in protest of his home
country's high taxes. He only recently returnedafter Sweden's centre-right government abolished a wealth tax and reduced
income taxes.

Kamprad's
enormous wealth puts IKEA workers and their union at a serious disadvantage.

IKEA
could indefinitely ignore the dispute, which it argues is a strike, without
noticing any painful loss in revenue. Of the company's 12 stores in Canada,
only one other, in Montreal, is unionized.

If the
company has an Achilles heel, however, it is in its Swedish roots and professed
values of corporate social responsibility.

"IKEA's
low prices must never be achieved at the expense of people or the environment.
That is a condition for doing good business," IKEA's websitestates.

"By
co-operating with companies, trade unions and organisations, we are able to
learn, share experiences and accomplish more than we could have done by working
on our own," IKEA also says.

That
stated commitment is why the Teamsters have enlisted the help of Nordic union
organizations to help publicize
the company's corporate behaviour, which they allege includes demanding
concessions, encouraging and rewarding employees who crossed their own union's
picket line, promoting contact with LabourWatch,
a group that helps decertify unions, and delaying bargaining.

But do
the Teamsters have enough resources and the workers enough time and resolve to
put the pressure needed on IKEA to end the dispute?

An
international union strategist from London who observed a Nordic labour
delegation's fact-finding mission on the dispute warned about the challenge.

"If
you're going to challenge a big company, you need to work across borders,
because [picketing] one store in Richmond is not enough to get the message
across," Erin van der Maas of the International Transport Workers
Federation toldThe Tyee last November.

Peter
Lövkvist, secretary of the 400,000 strong Nordic Transport Workers Federation,
visited with Richmond workers and also met with IKEA in order to write a report
titled "How IKEA Is Hurting Families." Lövkvist seemed shocked at
IKEA's indifference to its local workers.

"IKEA
has a good reputation in Sweden. It's a good employer. But it seems the farther
away from Sweden they get, the worse IKEA gets in labour relations,"
Lövkvist told The Tyee in November.

Fight
gone on 'too long': IKEA

The
Teamsters' Dawson said that IKEA is feeling pressure, with its Richmond store
suffering.

"They
don't have the full store open -- there is no restaurant or kids' room, no
returns or exchanges -- so obviously it's having an impact," Dawson said.
"There is a marked reduction in the number of vehicles going into
Richmond."

But
IKEA's Löwenborg-Frick disagrees. "The attempted boycott has not affected
our business. Most importantly, it is not a productive measure that will get
the parties closer to a resolution," she said.

"The
store is open and has continued to run successfully through some of our busiest
times. Everyone in the store is working hard to serve the more than 1.25
million visitors who have continued to shop at IKEA Richmond during the strike.
We have no reason to believe that we cannot continue to operate as we
are," she concluded.

Veteran
observer Mark Thompson, professor emeritus of labour relations at the
University of British Columbia, said the Teamsters' position is "pretty
normal."

"The
guys on the picket line are watching these other people walk in happily every
day and collect their pay. It's a very emotional thing," Thompsontold
Business In Vancouver newspaper in January.

IKEA's
Löwenborg-Frick said the parties remain far apart.

"At
this time there are 16 outstanding items between the parties, including
critical issues such as wages and benefits as well as the employment status of
the employees the union wants terminated," she wrote.

5 comments:

Great idea but people keep going there, or to the other store that isn't being picketed. A long time to be opposing big company and sure hope the boss can see reality, a people do have the right to organize.

Great idea but people keep going there, or to the other store that isn't being picketed. A long time to be opposing big company and sure hope the boss can see reality, a people do have the right to organize.

Quite correct, people do have the right to organize. Other people have the right to walk by and go into the store.

Unless said persons are union members and quickly sanctioned for crossing another union's picket line (that is a conditon imposed on being a union member).

If any union member contested my crossing a picket line ( I am not a union member), I might say "have a nice day" and keep walking towards the enterance if said picketers were arrogant and rude. If they are courteous polite and stating their case in greeting people going in, then I would most likely turn around and shop at a competitor's store.

They are not the police and other than what rights the union has imposed on them being members, they have no higher rights over and above people who are not union members.

There is a such a thing as a lost cause. They pretty much gone as far as they can go. Take want IKEA has offered and end it. One cannot live on strike pay to pay for the mortgage and groceries.

In the union world they most likely have become martyrs. Is that worth to lose their homes?

IKEA can if it wants close the entire store, and open a new one with new employees. It's their choice to do so.

This isn't Norma Rae holding up a cardboard sign that says "Union" in a textile sweatshop.

Great idea but people keep going there, or to the other store that isn't being picketed. A long time to be opposing big company and sure hope the boss can see reality, a people do have the right to organize.

Quite correct, people do have the right to organize. Other people have the right to walk by and go into the store.

Unless said persons are union members and quickly sanctioned for crossing another union's picket line (that is a conditon imposed on being a union member).

If any union member contested my crossing a picket line ( I am not a union member), I might say "have a nice day" and keep walking towards the enterance if said picketers were arrogant and rude. If they are courteous polite and stating their case in greeting people going in, then I would most likely turn around and shop at a competitor's store. I've done both quite a few times. My decision. Not theirs.

They are not the police and other than what rights the union has imposed on them being members, they have no higher rights over and above people who are not union members.

There is a such a thing as a lost cause. They pretty much gone as far as they can go. Take want IKEA has offered and end it. One cannot live on strike pay to pay for the mortgage and groceries.

In the union world they most likely have become martyrs. Is that worth to lose their homes?

IKEA can if it wants close the entire store, and open a new one with new employees. It's their choice to do so.

This isn't Norma Rae holding up a cardboard sign that says "Union" in a textile sweatshop.

Bill Tieleman and Senator Larry Campbell, former Vancouver mayor

Jim Sinclair, Cindy Oliver, Ken Georgetti and Bill Tieleman

Bill Tieleman's coverage of the Basi-Virk/BC Legislature Raid Case praised by other journalists:

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